Trialling a Blackberry Z10: Day 1

So Vodafone have kindly sent me a BlackBerry Z10 to play with for a couple of weeks, and in this series of articles I will be covering my experiences with the phone, the services it offers and anything else. Since I use an HTC ONE X in my everyday life, a lot of what I compare with will be that phone and hence Android as an OS.

First Impressions

As is the norm with BlackBerry, the phone looks and feels really good. It is not quite brushed metal finish, but it is in league with most other smartphones it is trying to compete with. In the box you have the standard USB Cable, charger and headphones along with the phone and some warranty documentation. It feels good in your hand and is actually lighter than it looks. It also opens up to reveal battery, SIM and a microSD card slot.

Turning on

First time you turn on the device you have to do a lot of agreeing to warranty and set some things up. That means that you need an active internet connection, and not having one doesn’t seem to be a choice. This probably is not one of the best features of the phone.

Ports

While you have the standard 3.5 mm slot as well as the micro-USB, there is also a mini-HDMI slot on the phone to allow you to connect it to a bigger screen.

OS

If you have never used the BlackBerry OS before, you might be a bit lost. The OS is very new to me and I am still learning how things work. Everything is connected via the BlackBerry hub, and this is where you get all your notifications, whether they are in the form of texts, calls, or your social media. Once you get around learning to use the hub, it gets easier from there.

Apps already available

It comes with a few apps that are already on the phone. They include social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, though I noticed only one Twitter account can be added on it. I have not investigated this any further. There are apps for Dropbox and Box, as well as Linked In and FourSquare. There are of course the built in BlackBerry apps, such as BBM, Maps, Calendar and such like. It also offers Docs To Go which allows you to view Office documents. It also includes Adobe Reader.

There is a lot that I still have to discover with this phone, so I’ll keep you guys updated on how my impressions go, and whether I learn to love it or want to stick with my regular phone.

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Can be found somewhere between designing new tech as an electronics engineer or testing new tech as a technology enthusiast. Lives mostly on Twitter, and would love to have a word with you there as @smacula.